The BOKU article for the International Day of Forests, written in German and accessible here, highlights how sustainable forest management can reconcile wood production, climate protection, and biodiversity conservation, using the Austrian Living Lab Wegscheid as a real-world testbed for new integrative practices. It showcases how integrative forest management approaches – such as ecological landscape management, coordinated monitoring of habitat structures, and multi‑stakeholder Living Labs – operationalise our Network’s vision of connecting use and conservation across Europe in practice and under the framework of TRANSFORMIT project.

TRANSFORMIT project, coordinated by the European Forest Institute, directly builds on Integrate Network’s mission by testing and upscaling integrative forest management across seven Living Labs and numerous demonstration sites, including Wegscheid. By generating evidence-based guidelines, stakeholder platforms and practical tools for combining wood production, biodiversity conservation and multiple ecosystem services, the project strengthens and contributes to the Network’s mission in supporting the implemention of integrative approaches in line with the European Green Deal and Forest Strategy goals.